Page 1330 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

management of the land. But only in that. When it’s a
question of tens of thousands, he doesn’t think of money.’
She spoke with that gleefully sly smile with which women
often talk of the secret characteristics only known to

them—of those they love. ‘Do you see that big building?
that’s the new hospital. I believe it will cost over a
hundred thousand; that’s his hobby just now. And do you
know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for
some meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he
refused, and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it
was not really because of that, but everything together, he
began this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not
miserly about money. C’est une petitesse, if you like, but I
love him all the more for it. And now you’ll see the house
in a moment. It was his grandfather’s house, and he has
had nothing changed outside.’
‘How beautiful!’ said Dolly, looking with involuntary
admiration at the handsome house with columns, standing
out among the different-colored greens of the old trees in
the garden.
‘Isn’t it fine? And from the house, from the top, the
view is wonderful.’
They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and
bright with flowers, in which two laborers were at work

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